Ellington

The Washington Post announced today that former Sen. Tom Daschle will head the Department of Health and Human Services in the new Obama cabinet.

In recent years, Thomas Daschle has become an assiduous student of the U.S. health system, serving on the Board of Trustees of the Mayo Clinic and co-writing the book "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis." In it, he advocates creating an independent body, modeled after the Federal Reserve Board, to oversee health policy. That idea, and the book, received a hearty endorsement from then-Sen. Obama.

"The American health-care system is in crisis, and workable solutions have been blocked for years by deeply entrenched ideological divisions," Obama wrote at the time. "Sen. Daschle brings fresh thinking to this problem, and his Federal Reserve for Health concept holds great promise for bridging this intellectual chasm and, at long last, giving this nation the health care it deserves."